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I'm miserable and achey, but I'll survive. While I suffer my mind keeps going back to the lockdowns when COVID started spreading. I had been working as a security guard on the dock, this meant I was classed as an "essential worker" and was not furrloughed. I worked right through the UK's economic shutdowns. My new found status blocked my ability to find alternative employment, who was hiring when 90% of the staff you already paid were sent home? Previously I had been cycling through several positions in the area, reception, hole watcher (yes that is a real job) fire watcher, (yes that is a different job) banksman, general laboring, security guard, safety monitor etc. Now I was effrctively trapped in one role.
I was also living with my parents at the time who have health conditions that put them in greater risk should they contract it, and so had to practice "shielding" i.e. avoid direct contact. Conversations would take place over the phone, outside in the garden or by opening doors or with the stairs between us.
It was quite isolating psychologically. This was reinforced at work which was deserted apart from the occasional maintenance van doing the rounds. On the positive side I enjoyed my commutes to work, the roads were deserted so I could ride without fear of being rear-ended by a drunk docker or going under the wheel of a truck thanks to a gust of wind[1]. Once I got over the erieness of the quiet I found it peaceful.
When I was at work there wasn't anything to do. No visitors meant I just sat or stood there for 12 hours at a time. After awhile I started taking books to read and then I bought a DVD player and watched films. This could've gotten me in trouble had they caught me but the alternative was to just crack under the weight of it all.
If this sounds like a lark then there's two things to keep in mind. There is a vast difference between getting money for nothing and getting money to do nothing. There are jobs that through luck or inefficiency or bureaucratic mandates that cover the latter. Security guard in a place thats dead, warehouse night shift, night porters for unpopular hotels etc. There you are expected to be doing the activites assigned to your job and if you cannot then you are expected to do nothing and remain in a state of readiness should the opportunity to do your job present itself no matter how rarely.
If you've not had one of those jobs you maybe familiar with the managerial maxim "time to lean is time to clean". I've had jobs under supervisors who breathed that wisdom but even they wouldn't expect you to spend a whole 8/10/12 hour shift cleaning if something is preventing actual work being lije say the line is jammed and the technicians are busy working on another one.
In cases like mine management do expect you to be ready to pounce as soon as you clock on and upto the second you clock off. Anyway once it became clear that they weren't going to be checking up on the staff still working I could fill my time with some distractions and catching uo on my reading and research. It was that or dive into social media.
The second thing to keep in mind was that the virus was running rampant and was lethal. In addition to every news item reminding me how dangerous the microbes in the air were it struck closer to home. My uncle contracted it, fortunately he lived on our street and we could help him by getting him supplies and checking on him regularly. He looked like a zombie, I was convinced he was going to die, thankfully he didn't, he celebrated his 70th birthday this week. Sadly other people I knew did die. These weren't close friends but they were people I knew to speak to when I met them in the street or the pub and due to restrictions I wasn't able to attend their funerals.
Essentially every day I had a sense that I was putting myself and my loved ones in danger. All because of a bureaucratic categorisation. Unlike a health care worker or a shop staff I was providing no actual essential work even when there was work to do. I just had to stand there in a high vis incase someone tresspassed or a lorry driver got lost and needed help reversing down the access road.
And for this risk I recieved zilch. No hazard pay, just two reusable masks with the company logo stitched on it[2]. And they didn't arrive for months, I was using my own until then.
If I'm coming across as a martyr, I know there were others who had it worse. Other essential workers had all my issues and had to interact with the public on a regular basis which put them at great risk. Though that knowledge was a cause for concern the few times I did have to interact with a stranger.
They say humans adapt to most things. Over time a sense of routine estsblished itself which took some of the edge off the everpresent climate of fear. Meanwhile the government and the business community were getting fed up with all the losses to the economy started working on ways to get people back to work and consuming.
Eventually things returned to normal, and I moved on to other ventures. Though of course things still aren't normal. COVID remains and continues to mutate. It still infects people and can have drastic effects. The big change from 2020 to today is that we're now in a place where the damaging effects of COVID aren't disruptive for commerce and adminstration, so hard luck for those who contract it even those who still die from it. Several people at my current workplace have weak immune systems and yet when I reported my COVID they treated it like a regular sick leave period. I'm not complaining on my behalf sick leave is the most generous I've had in my worklife but it is concerning that COVID is being treated like a summer cold.
Also yes, the title is a reference to Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
1: These are not random examples. In 2023 the council finally moved forward with paving a cycling route to the docks and the nearby industrial estate. A year after I stopped working there.
2: Branded safety equipment, just one of the many examples of crisis profiteering that went on during that time.
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